Tumi Inc.
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| Subsidiary | |
| Traded as | : TUMI |
| Founded | United States (1975) |
| Founder | Charlie Clifford |
| Headquarters | South Plainfield, NJ |
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Key people
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Jerome Griffith (CEO), Joseph R. Gromek (Chairperson of Board) |
| Parent | Samsonite |
| Website | tumi.com |
Tumi Holdings, Inc., is a South Plainfield, New Jersey-based manufacturer of suitcases and bags for travel. Founded in 1975 by Charlie Clifford after a stint in the Peace Corps in Peru, the company is named after a Peruvian ceremonial knife used for sacrifices. Tumi, Inc. was a unit of Doughty Hanson & Co. from 2004 until after its 2012 initial public offering.
Tumi's products are known for their black-on-black ballistic nylon. Tumi is available at department stores and specialty stores as well as over 120 Tumi stores and 200 shop in shops around the world.
Tumi also supplies accessories such as belts, pens, and electronic equipment. The company teamed with designer Anish Kapoor in 2006 to produce the PowerPack Backpack that incorporated solar technology for charging phones and PDAs. The company also had a licensing agreement with Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati, launching a collection of eight co-branded pieces in 2006 sold through both of the brands' retail outlets.
Tumi puts a metal plate with a unique 20-digit registration number in each of its bags. Customers can register for the Tumi Tracer program to have their contact information entered into a central database so they can be reunited with their bag if it is found.
In 2004, Doughty Hanson & Co, a London-based private equity firm, took over Tumi for $276M. The take over came with a price drop in their products and a change in warranty from their famed lifetime warranty to 5 years. Tumi have since failed to honour customers who paid the significantly higher rates for the lifetime warranty prior to 2004.
Jerome Griffith became the CEO of Tumi Inc. in 2009.
On April 19, 2012, Tumi made an initial public offering of 18,779,865 shares, as Tumi Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TUMI). In December 2013, Joseph R. Gromek was named Chairperson of Board of Directors.
On March 4, 2016, Samsonite announced it would acquire Tumi in an all-cash transaction worth US$1.8Bn
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